I sat in my classroom this morning watching my kids play during their playtime. I was reminded of my first day with these same kids. The first day, I walked into the classroom and I turned into mad woman, trying to tame the zoo in my class. One boy was standing on a chair, one was hiding under the table, one was hitting another, another was throwing a tantrum and biting. Complete chaos! They often fought with each other and spoke Korean regularly. Today as I watched them they shared and helped each other and enjoy playing together. This year these monster students have become respectful little people (Well most of the time anyway!) They have all grown up so much in a year.
At first I thought being called Sara Teacher or more commonly, Teacher, was the most impersonal thing ever, but now I think I'm going to miss hearing "Sara Teacher" 143 times a day! These kids have taught me how to understand unconditional love.
I will never know what will happen to them as they grow up. I won't be there to help them anymore with the little problems that to them seem enormous. I pray for each of them, that they would one day find their worth in God. I pray that God will do something through my love for them. I feel like their proud Mama.
They each have such strong and unique personalities already. They will be used in such influencial ways. Who knows, my Luke who fights for justice in the classroom during playtime saying, "Don't do that! That's not fair!" might be the very same man someday who will fight for justice in the modern day slavery realm.
Today I was reading Sally's sentence that she'd written. It said, "I give mother a mooma toy." I asked her what that word "mooma" is. She told me, "Teacher, it says necklace!!" Haha! Oh, of course it does...in her head anyway :)
I didn't really know what my mission was when I came to Korea. Though it wasn't clear at the time, I'm confident that it has been accomplished. Whether it was teaching the girls to be feminine and not tackle the boys, or teaching the boys not to slam doors in girls' faces, each lesson was heard. I watch in wonder as even little girls know how to play house and have dreams of being a mother. I still laugh when Ace gives me his guilty smile. I wish I could capture that on camera!
Goodbyes are hard. At my last small group, they bought a cake and sang me a farewell song in Korean. I cried not only because I'm really sad to leave, but because I'm so thankful for all the blessings that were given to me here. Sunday night I had a going away dinner. These last few days I've been hanging out with friends any spare minute I have, staying up way to late and doing way to many random and funny things, trying to savor each moment.
I'm glad I have Thailand to look forward to. This Thursday I am going to Thailand for a week! The plan was originally to go to an orphanage there, but plans recently changed and now for a couple days I will be meeting new sponsored children through Compassion International, going to a safe house for rescued human trafficking victims, visiting a school, staying with a Thai family and hopefully riding an elephant! I hope I'll get a chance to blog from there.
I honestly don't know who reads this blog anymore, considering its been almost a year and a half. I thank you so much for your prayers. I truly am on cloud nine thinking about how much of blessing my time here has been. I am bursting with both sadness and joy at the same time. This step is to go home. Please pray that God would reveal the next step in His plan.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
Seven more...
I have seven more days in Korea. Seven more days to walk to school in the morning. Seven more days to walk past the car wash man who waves and tells me good morning everyday. Seven more days to hug my kids. Seven more days to zip up their coats and help them put on their shoes. Seven more days to assist with the nose wipes and for those of you who know me, seven more days to use the whole bottle of hand-sanitizer :) These things that I'd seen as monotonous before, the things that seemed to make every day the same as the day before, are the things I'm going to miss the most. Until this weekend, I was in complete denial that I was leaving. I think it's starting to hit me now and it makes me really sad.
The other day I had a revelation. When I think of Korea, I just think of the glory days. I think everything about living in this foreign country, speaking a foreign language, teaching the cutest Korean kids, and being part of an awesome church is the best. The only way that I can really describe the way I feel right now is a deep sadness. But, a thought just occurred to me. I know that God is asking me to go back to the US right now. So, if I stayed in Korea, I would be disobeying Him. If I stayed, His anointing on me would not be here anymore and I would not be peaceful or fruitful anymore. I wouldn't love it here anymore. So since He's asking me to go back to America, I know that my anointing will be there and I will be just as peaceful, fruitful and joyful there :) It's comforting that as long as I'm in His will, the anointing travels with me, even across oceans!
I heard today that one of the current teachers here is going to take my class. I know that after I leave, my kids won't be my kids anymore, and they are no longer my responsibility, but I still was uneasy about an unknown person taking care of them, haha! I'm am so excited that she's taking them. She will take good care of them :)
I have so many things to do before I leave! My list just keeps growing!
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Festival Fiasco
Sorry I haven't blogged in about 2 weeks! I'm been all consumed with the festival fiasco! Well it's that time of year again....festival time. It's pretty much the bane of private English schools in Korea. Everyone feels the same way about it. Last year I thought it was bad, but I had no idea! This year has taken it to a whole new level.
At the end of the school year (February) each school has a musical performance. It's not the typical performance you are thinking of, it's a full out 30 min. play for each class, which means altogether about 4 hours of muscicals. Because the parents pay dearly for our school, they have the power to demand perfetion. And unfortunately they do. My school is trying something new this year with the musical and unfortunately, as a school we didn't start practicing until December. In hindsight, we should have started in the summer!
My students are doing Snow White. It sounds fun, but sadly there is no fun to be found. As of last week, our students still didn't know the lines (which in my opinion, 30 min. of lines is way to much for a 5 year old!), they weren't very good at the dances and they were already burnt out. Each time I played the song, it was accompanied by "Uuuughhh, Teeeeacccchhher... One more time?" Because it was no where near perfect, my class was told that we had to pratice our play for the next 5 days, 6 hours a day! We had to ditch all bookwork and only focus on the performance.
The whole thing makes me so sad. Yesterday during pratice, all of us teachers and the Korean teachers were watching the kids...and about 5 teachers at a time, yelling different directions to these poor kids. Three students ended up crying because they were regularly being told they were doing a "bad" job. These poor kids.
I recognize there is so much pressure on all sides. My school is only demanding perfection because the moms are nit-picking, trying to find something wrong with the performance in order to say our school is bad a pull their kids out of the school. Even one kid leaving our school would be a 24,000/year loss. Because there are so many private schools, the parents really do have all the power because they can just leave and go find a better one.
The sad part is, these kids are the ones who are losing out. All they need is attention love and encouragement. Instead they are being told they are bad because they are not pointing their toes in the song or they can't remember one of the 20 lines they have.
I know the performance with turn out well. They have worked incredibly hard and the kids will have fun, I suppose. The parents will put on a happy face and applaud their children, but aftermath and the phone calls our poor Korean staff will get because of the picky parents is still unknown. Sadly, this happens every year...
On a lighter note...Today I went to the post office to mail home a box. There is a big box that you can send on a boat to America for only 30 dollars. So, this morning I packed the box with shoes and clothes, taped it all up and tricked myself into thinking I'm stronger than I am :) I had this "good" idea that I'd save money and walk to the post office. It's never a good sign when you are only a few steps out of the building and realize your arms are already cramping. Haha! The post office was only 3 city blocks away, close right? Well...It took me about a half an hour to get there because every few feet I had to set the box down and take a break! How embarrassing! People on the street watched me curiously, smirking while probably thinking, "What is the white girl doing now!?" I eventually got the the post office, both the box and me in one piece. No injuries along the way, just rubber arms that are going to be real sore tomorrow. No need for lifting weights when you can fight with a box instead!
At the end of the school year (February) each school has a musical performance. It's not the typical performance you are thinking of, it's a full out 30 min. play for each class, which means altogether about 4 hours of muscicals. Because the parents pay dearly for our school, they have the power to demand perfetion. And unfortunately they do. My school is trying something new this year with the musical and unfortunately, as a school we didn't start practicing until December. In hindsight, we should have started in the summer!
My students are doing Snow White. It sounds fun, but sadly there is no fun to be found. As of last week, our students still didn't know the lines (which in my opinion, 30 min. of lines is way to much for a 5 year old!), they weren't very good at the dances and they were already burnt out. Each time I played the song, it was accompanied by "Uuuughhh, Teeeeacccchhher... One more time?" Because it was no where near perfect, my class was told that we had to pratice our play for the next 5 days, 6 hours a day! We had to ditch all bookwork and only focus on the performance.
The whole thing makes me so sad. Yesterday during pratice, all of us teachers and the Korean teachers were watching the kids...and about 5 teachers at a time, yelling different directions to these poor kids. Three students ended up crying because they were regularly being told they were doing a "bad" job. These poor kids.
I recognize there is so much pressure on all sides. My school is only demanding perfection because the moms are nit-picking, trying to find something wrong with the performance in order to say our school is bad a pull their kids out of the school. Even one kid leaving our school would be a 24,000/year loss. Because there are so many private schools, the parents really do have all the power because they can just leave and go find a better one.
The sad part is, these kids are the ones who are losing out. All they need is attention love and encouragement. Instead they are being told they are bad because they are not pointing their toes in the song or they can't remember one of the 20 lines they have.
I know the performance with turn out well. They have worked incredibly hard and the kids will have fun, I suppose. The parents will put on a happy face and applaud their children, but aftermath and the phone calls our poor Korean staff will get because of the picky parents is still unknown. Sadly, this happens every year...
On a lighter note...Today I went to the post office to mail home a box. There is a big box that you can send on a boat to America for only 30 dollars. So, this morning I packed the box with shoes and clothes, taped it all up and tricked myself into thinking I'm stronger than I am :) I had this "good" idea that I'd save money and walk to the post office. It's never a good sign when you are only a few steps out of the building and realize your arms are already cramping. Haha! The post office was only 3 city blocks away, close right? Well...It took me about a half an hour to get there because every few feet I had to set the box down and take a break! How embarrassing! People on the street watched me curiously, smirking while probably thinking, "What is the white girl doing now!?" I eventually got the the post office, both the box and me in one piece. No injuries along the way, just rubber arms that are going to be real sore tomorrow. No need for lifting weights when you can fight with a box instead!
Saturday, February 4, 2012
1 degree weather and no hot water
One day this week it was 1 degree when I walked to school at 9:30. Brrrrr! It has been so cold here lately. It's great to be able to walk to school everyday, but I haven't appreciated it as much this week :)
Because it was so cold, I went to wash my face Thursday night and there was no hot water. After washing my face with ice water, I decided to wait on the shower, hoping it would magically fix itself by the next morning. No such luck. When I told my boss at work the next day, she laughed because I'm the fifth one to be without hot water in the last two weeks. This is not a laughing matter, haha!
It turns out my pipes were frozen :( By the time I got home on Friday, the landlord's wife had faced a heater towards the boiler on my balcony. When I walked in, both the faucets were running. Later she came by and told me (translated through her son) that I was to keep the heater pointed at the pipes until the hot water came back. The son told me it would take 3-4 hours. Turns out 14 hours didn't even work!
I hadn't take a shower in two days at this point, so I had to go to a sauna/public bath house. You can only imagine, that in itself was an....experience. Oh well, at least it gave me something to laugh about.
It was already almost time for bed. Leaving the heater on and the faucets running all night seemed dangerous. Sooooo, I set my alarm each two hours, to check the heater and the faucets. What a pain! Each time, the water was still frigid. I kept having dreams that the hot water came back :)
When I got back to my apartment Saturday afternoon, I had hot water! The landlord's wife came in a couple of hours later and when I showed her it worked, she practically jumped up and down! She squealed clapped and expected me to share in her excitement, haha. I think she was happy that her and her husband wouldn't have to pay for the repairs. So, I clapped with her and said "Thank you!" I am really appreciating the hot water today!
Because it was so cold, I went to wash my face Thursday night and there was no hot water. After washing my face with ice water, I decided to wait on the shower, hoping it would magically fix itself by the next morning. No such luck. When I told my boss at work the next day, she laughed because I'm the fifth one to be without hot water in the last two weeks. This is not a laughing matter, haha!
It turns out my pipes were frozen :( By the time I got home on Friday, the landlord's wife had faced a heater towards the boiler on my balcony. When I walked in, both the faucets were running. Later she came by and told me (translated through her son) that I was to keep the heater pointed at the pipes until the hot water came back. The son told me it would take 3-4 hours. Turns out 14 hours didn't even work!
I hadn't take a shower in two days at this point, so I had to go to a sauna/public bath house. You can only imagine, that in itself was an....experience. Oh well, at least it gave me something to laugh about.
It was already almost time for bed. Leaving the heater on and the faucets running all night seemed dangerous. Sooooo, I set my alarm each two hours, to check the heater and the faucets. What a pain! Each time, the water was still frigid. I kept having dreams that the hot water came back :)
When I got back to my apartment Saturday afternoon, I had hot water! The landlord's wife came in a couple of hours later and when I showed her it worked, she practically jumped up and down! She squealed clapped and expected me to share in her excitement, haha. I think she was happy that her and her husband wouldn't have to pay for the repairs. So, I clapped with her and said "Thank you!" I am really appreciating the hot water today!
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